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=__//**By: Jeremiah L.Henderson **//__=

=**Biography of Johannes Gutenberg** =

Johannes Gutenberg was born in 1398 in the city of Mainz, Germany. Johannes was reading in the church libray when he smiled at the wonderful book he was reading. But as he looked at the chains chaining the book the reading table his smile turned into a frown. He longed for a better way to make books so that they weren't so precious. People had to hand write books back then. When he was a kid he loved reading, it would take months, even years, to make 1 book and Johannes didn't want to wait that long, so he planned to do something about it one day.

Johannes moved to Strasbourg in 1428 because townspeople and rich families were rivals (Johann's family was very rich and powerful). Johannes had an early start. His father used to work at the Mainz Mint and Johannes usually went with him, he learned tips from jewelers and goldsmiths about how to carve or how to make metal. So little that he knew those tips would later on in life help him with his invention. He stayed in Strasbourg for twenty years. In his spare time he fell in love with Ennelin zu der Iserin Thure. Unfortunately along the engagement he changed his mind for one reason or another and he decided not to marry her. Ennelin was outraged. She sued Johannes for breaking his promise to marry her. Though it was her lawsuit, he won it.

Johannes started off his invention by making metal letters with the techniques he learned from Mainz Mint as a boy. But, he had to carve out the metal. Then he arranged them into a sentence and pressed a piece of paper against the letters with his hands. When he did that the ink did not come out evenly. One day he watched people make paper out of animal skins. They used a press so that the water dried out the paper. That is when Johannes decided he needed to make a press. So him and his partners gathered all their materials and started their work. In 1450 he came back to Mainz because he was running out of money for his paper, metal, and all the ink. Also, his lawyer said he needed to go back to Mainz to get the rest of his inheritance. So he continued his experiments for the press.

He also worked on the Catholican of Johanns de Janua, a gigantic encyclopedia, seven hundred forty eight pages in two colums of sixty six lines each. His Bible pages were not only edged with 22 carat gold but the inside front and back covers are adorned with a floral strip of antique gold. Although some book collectors preferred hand-written books. He also printed The Bible of 42 lines, the oldest surviving book on the western world. It was completed by August 15, 1456. While he was alive no printed material was credited to him.

Johannes died on the year of 1468 in a fire when enemy troops attacked Mainz. He was buried in the town francisan church. Now people use printers and scanners. We would have less books if Johannes Gutenberg did not keep at it and try his best. He did, and the result was a great invention, the printing press.

Works Cited "Gutenberg Page 2." //Gutenberg Page 2//. Web. 14 May 2012. . "Johannes Gutenberg Inventor of the Printing Press." //Johannes Gutenberg Inventor of the Printing Press//. Web. 14 May 2012. . Web. 14 May 2012. .

=Economic Impact of Johannes Gutenberg =

I cannot find any information on how much it cost to create. Johannes independently financed his creation. The Printing Press effected the economy by making it cheaper and less time-consuming to produce a book and it made it cheaper to buy the books. People spent less money on a daily basis. No, The Printing Press was not expensive for the time because people did not buy the press people bought the books that came from the press. In 1455, Johannes demonstrated the power of the press by selling the Gutenberg Bible for a price that was about the same as three years wages for an average clerk. But, that was significantly cheaper than a handwritten Bible that could take a monk 20 years to transcribe.

Works Cited "History of the Printing Press - Invention of the Printing Press." __History of the Printing Press - Invention of the Printing Press__. 21 May 2012 . "The Printing Press." __The Printing Press__. 21 May 2012 .

=Cultural Impact of Johannes Gutenberg = = = The Printing Press changed the lives of everyday people by making books cheaper so it was easier to obtain knowledge. It also made it less time-consuming to make a book so they weren't so precious. Also, it made it to where people didn't have to rewrite them by hand so there were much less spelling and grammatical errors. There was very little cultural resistance, only from the few book collectors who preferred hand-written books. Most people excepted it right away. In the time that The Printing Press was made patents didn't exist. It doesn't compare to modern day patents at all. It was never patented. It was invented before the time of the patent, Johannes actually died before the time of the patent.